


Jumper

by literallyjohnwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, References to Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literallyjohnwatson/pseuds/literallyjohnwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by an 'Imagine Your OTP' post: "Imagine your otp meeting as strangers and person A attempts to jump and commit suicide, while person B talks them down."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jumper

**Author's Note:**

> This was just buzzing around in the back of my head, and was written mostly on my phone while stuck in traffic during a snowstorm. I'd like to think it's rather fluffy despite the nature of the content.

A sigh escaped his lips, his warm breath mingling with the cold air, creating a meager cloud in front of him. What a letdown. Open and shut murder. The culprit was so obvious it had screamed at Sherlock the moment he set foot on the crime scene.  
  
Boring. Boring. _Bored._  
  
He stuffed his hands impatiently into his pockets and tried to avert his gaze from the people bustling on the street around him. If he let himself look at them, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from assessing every inch of them; deducing all the mundane details of their lives. He didn’t care about them, he didn’t _want_ to know their stories, their secrets, all the things they thought they were so expert at hiding. It would be different if they were at least interesting. He could strip the average person down layer by layer until he struck their very core, but he still found nothing valuable, nothing worth knowing. Still, his mind burned to be occupied, to be filled with something interesting, something useful. Sometimes he thought his clever mind might very well rip him in half; drive him mad.  
  
Without even looking up, he diverted his path to one he knew would be less traveled. Cutting through a shoddy looking alley, he came out onto an old overpass in a nasty part of town. Not like he was scared of being attacked or mugged. He didn’t look it, but he was more than capable of defending himself from the common criminal.  
  
His hand grazed over the mobile in his pocket. He knew someone he could contact to get him something, something that could keep him occupied, to appease his listless mind. A small, cool bottle and a sterile needle; objects that meant for him a release, a distraction. He knew brother dearest wouldn’t approve, and he most certainly would find out. He had a nasty habit of sticking his overly large nose in places it had no business being. This fact only egged him on.  
  
His fingers curled around the phone and he was about to wholeheartedly commit to sending a message when someone’s shoulder collided roughly with his own, knocking his hand from his pocket and shaking his train of thought. Sherlock’s eyes darted up and were met with a pair of strong but uncertain eyes.  
  
The man who had bumped into him was fairly normal in stature but short compared to Sherlock. His haircut, his gait, and the tan lines on his wrists said military; the cane he walked with said wounded in action. He wondered if he had served in Afghanistan or Iraq. Sherlock had discovered all this in a matter of seconds. The man was very clearly nervous and distracted.  
  
As the man stood up straight, Sherlock noticed a slight change in his demeanor. He suddenly stood as if he could walk without the help of cane, as if he wasn’t wounded at all. His limp was psychosomatic. Sherlock guessed that it was likely he was in fact wounded, albeit in another location on his body. This man has PTSD and was seeing a therapist for it. He’d just recently returned from his service was and having trouble readjusting to his civilian life. Judging by the circles under his eyes, he was having trouble sleeping and probably awoke from nightmares. He looked malnourished, like he hadn’t been eating properly.  
  
“Sorry,” the man mumbled offhandedly, crossing in front of Sherlock. His voice suggested defeat but his body language did not. He stood straight and proud while speaking. Sherlock cocked an eyebrow as he continued to study the man, who was walking not over the bridge as Sherlock was, but across it, meeting with the railing at the side. The man’s limp worsened the farther he walked.  
  
Sherlock continued on his way, taking only a few steps before being hit with a sudden realization: this man was going to kill himself. The fall onto the pavement below would be enough to do it. He’d waited until dark, and had chosen a location devoid of people, minimizing the chances that someone would be around to witness it. As Sherlock continued on, he supposed he should do something, but really, what business what it of his if some random wanted to off himself? No skin off his teeth. If that was what this man wanted, so be it. But as Sherlock continued on, something told him that this _wasn’t_ what this man wanted. He’d seemed too proud and upright while speaking to Sherlock, his eyes were resilient, he didn’t show defeat.  
  
But, he really needn’t get involved. He continued on his way, the bridge now above him and to his back. He stuck his hands in his pockets again and fingered his mobile, trying not to think about the man, but some wild instinct in the back of him mind told him to turn around. He whirled around on his heels and arched his neck up, and he was met with the sight of the man standing erect on the bridge in front of the railing, hands gripping it firmly. His cane lay discarded behind him, both of his legs supporting his weight equally. Definitely psychosomatic. That man had adrenaline coursing through his veins. He was in a high-pressure situation, and his mind wasn’t on his injury or the misery of his current life. This man was potentially about to die but had never felt more alive.  
  
Interesting.  
  
This man didn’t want to die. He was just bored. Bored with the mundane tasks of everyday life, searching for something beyond that, something to make his heart race and pump fire through his veins. In this, Sherlock could definitely relate. He felt as if he were brothers in arms with this man although he had spoken naught but one word to him.  
  
Sherlock sighed and cursed to himself as he cleared his throat to speak.  
  
“You really don’t want to be doing that,” he shouted lazily up at the man.  
  
“Sir, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need it. Please just go about your business and don’t let this weigh on your conscience.”  
  
Sherlock suppressed a laugh. “I assure you, this weighing on my conscience has nothing to do with it. The fact of the matter is, you don’t want to die.”  
  
The man turned angry. “You’ve no idea. How could you possibly know what I feel like? What my life has been like?”  
  
Sherlock smirked to himself before taking a big breath and shouting back up at the man. “I know you’re military, recently home from service. You’re feeling dissatisfied with you civilian life and frustrated at your limp, which your therapist insists is psychosomatic. Quite right, too, I’m afraid. Look at yourself right now. You’re standing as if you’ve never needed cane a day in your life. You’re not depressed and you don’t want to die. You’re bored and you want to feel alive. When you’ve got something exciting, when the adrenaline is flowing, that limp is gone and you have an incredible will to live.”  
  
“Wh—How did you know all that?” the man stammered in astonishment.  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes before taking another deep breath and replying. “I didn’t know, I saw. Your haircut and bearing are clearly military. When you’re not thinking about it, you stand upright as if you’re at attention. You’ve got tan lines, but they’re at the wrist so you haven’t been on holiday, therefore, military service. Now, out of curiosity, which did you serve in, Afghanistan or Iraq?”  
  
Even from the ground Sherlock could tell that the man was blinking and gaping.  
  
“That was—that was amazing. Afghanistan. I served in Afghanistan,” he replied as if he’d forgotten he was standing on the side of a bridge prepared to jump.  
  
Amazing. Not the response Sherlock was accustomed to getting.  
  
“Right. Now why don’t you stop being an idiot and come down. We both know you don’t want to do this.”  
  
The man turned angry again. “Maybe you were able to figure out that stuff, but you can’t understand what my life is like now. I’ve got no place to live, hardly any money. Every day is just like the last. I don’t enjoy any of the things that used to bring me happiness. I’m just going through the motions. I don’t see a point to it anymore.”  
  
Sherlock could relate more than the man knew. He found most tasks of daily life pointless, most of the things that humans found important, rather worthless. To him, there was only the next case. Something he could wrap his head around, something to get his blood boiling and his heart racing. Something to give him a natural high so he didn’t have to create on himself. He and this man could not be more different, yet at heart they were one in the same. As he craned his neck to peer up at the man, he might have been looking in a mirror. This man was oblivious to how much they actually had in common.  
  
Sherlock furrowed his brows, lost in thought. He contemplated for several seconds before opening his mouth to speak again, cursing himself a second time. He couldn’t believe himself for what he was about to say. He couldn’t believe himself for getting involved with this man’s life in the first place. But there was something inherently fascinating about him, and he’d more than piqued Sherlock’s interest. For the first time in a long time, he was faced with a person he didn’t mind conversing with, someone he was possibly interested in getting to know better. Odd circumstances, but in no way dull, and that was the important thing.  
  
“How do you feel about the violin?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you?”  
  
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”  
  
“If you come down, I’ve got room for a flatmate, and potential flatmates should know the worst about each other. If we split the rent between the two of us, you should be able to afford it.” The truth of the matter was, Sherlock didn’t need flatmate, nor did he want one. He was perfectly content to stay alone in his flat, despite its size and cost. What he did want was to see how this man would react. Most people would never accept the offer to move in with a complete stranger, and he was filled with the strange hope that this man would be different, that he would take a risk and let himself do something completely spontaneous. He wanted so badly for this man to surprise him and not be predictable. Sherlock believed he’d be able to stand sharing a flat with him if he did indeed accept.  
  
He let out an exasperated laugh. “You’re only saying that so I won’t jump. That’s insane, I can’t move in with a complete stranger.”  
  
“No, I’m saying it because I thought you might not be entirely dull like the rest of the population. Suit yourself then. Carry on with the jumping,” Sherlock scoffed, turning his back to go. How disappointing. He was so sure he saw something different in this man, something worth giving his time of day. He’d been truly interested, and was now extremely irked that he’d been wrong about him.  
  
Sherlock didn’t manage to get more than two steps when he heard a call of, “Wait! Wait! I’m coming down!”  
  
A smirk was playing across Sherlock’s lips before he’d even turned to see his jumper clambering over the barrier of the bridge and picking his up cane, though his limp was severely reduced as he jogged over the bridge and down to where Sherlock was. As he approached, Sherlock had to suppress his grin. He spun swiftly around and continued to stride along the pavement, his new companion close behind him.  
  
“Where are we going?” he inquired rather breathily.  
  
“Your new flat, of course.”  
  
“I don’t even know your name!”  
  
Sherlock stopped and turned, holding out a gloved hand.  
  
“Sherlock Holmes.”  
  
The man grinned and firmly grasped Sherlock’s hand with his own.  
  
“John Watson. You just saved my life, Mr. Holmes.”  
  
Sherlock couldn’t stop the smile from coming across his face this time. He hadn’t saved John’s life. John had saved his own life.  
  
“Call me Sherlock, please,” he said, removing his hand from John’s and continuing down the pavement, strangely hopeful that for the first time in a long time, he’d found someone he’d eventually be able to call friend.


End file.
